Rogue Fallout
by Driretlan Valentine
Summary: After Near takes up L's mantle and Watari is no longer to oversee Whammy House, three disenfranchised students track Near, and strive for their own individuality and greatness.


Chapter 1

**Chapter 1**

Four years ago, the battles between L and Kira, L/Kira and M, Kira and, technically he, and finally Kira and N had several things to consider of note. For one, the greatest detective in the world had been outdone by not one person, that person being Kira, but by three people. L challenged Kira, and it cost him his life. M challenged the world, and found himself on top, despite how it brought about his own, personal demise before a thorough victory could be accomplished. And finally, there was the copy of L that Watari had produced at Wammi house, the prodigy known as N. N had outdone L in a single, simple way however. N defeated Kira.

Between all the hoops that every one of these individuals had jumped through, another unseen act had been committed. Watari, who met the same demise as L had, as mentioned earlier been in charge of the Watari house. His death created a stir as to what was to become of an entire alphabet of individuals who were designed to be clones, or copies of L. Many of the people in this colorful alphabet were already accounted for. A had taken his own life years ago. B had already become a criminal who had once found the opportunity to outdo L, but met his own demise. L's life is, for all intents and purposes accounted for. Mello and Near, affectionately given the serials M and N have already been mentioned.

This leaves twenty one children and teenagers who had been in the custody of Watari before his own demise. Where were they supposed to go now was a question that only N was able to speculate. N had his own life before him, and a busy one at that considering he not only took the codename L for himself, but all of Ls other code names, which counted in the hundreds. Had N the time, it would have been obvious that he would have seen to the well-being of his old companions. However, as that wasn't the case they were now alone in the world.

Some took this as an opportunity to be free of the pressures around them. Living up to a name was difficult work. While it is impossible to know exactly what happened at Watari house, it is reasonable to think, as well as assume that a good amount of time was spent daily following the actions of L, as best they could be discovered. Whether Watari spoon-fed them the information, or if it was up to them to follow investigations and come to the same conclusions and findings as L is, again, impossible to know. However, it is reasonable to conclude that something to this extent occurred as N had gone over several years of the Kira case and had been investigating it behind the scenes to an extent that had gone unnoticed by L and Kira, and perhaps even Watari.

This train of thought is unnecessary now however, as one other individual from Watari's gifted school had emerged in a position that had put him in a frame of mind that was, in his own opinion greater than L, and now N.

To start though, it is important to know who was with this individual. As mentioned, 21 serial letters had not been accounted for. Of those 21, only 13 others were ever used, meaning that the last known member of Whammy house was codename R. That is, L was never recycled as a serial, so 5 accounted for, and 13 remaining brings us to R. R was very aware of the fact that 5 others were exposed, leaving him to be the thirteenth to be unaccounted for, but it left him unfazed. Instead, he preferred to dwell on the fact that Watari discovered him last. He occasionally pondered what his fate would have been like if he was discovered earlier, or even if he had been first and been in L's shoes.

R didn't care about this all that much though. He had grown a personal attachment to Watari that the others never picked up. While everyone was intently focused on L, he kept with the trend, but also invested time in Watari himself. The oft public front for L was his own mystery, and his death made him jealous of the connection he and L shared. In his mind, L had taken away Watari, not Kira, or the Shinigami.

It was without this guidance that R's story begins. After a week without receiving any word of where to go from anyone, Whammy house began to fall apart. R never really cared for any of the others there, but decided it would be necessary for him to get involved when something simple turned into something complicated. To other teenagers around his age, nineteen almost ended up in a fist fight over a game of chess. Both had openly declared the game was over when one had moved a knight three moves away from a potential checkmate, when the other had planned for that move to put the other three moves away from checkmate. It had started civilly when they decided to discuss their movements, declaring the game itself moot at that point. When neither could back down from the perfection of their plan, the table and board was cast aside, and R got between them.

"This is useless. Step away from each other," he said.

"And why should we? You've been here the shortest, who are you to tell us what to do?" one of them, F said.

"That doesn't mean anything, idiot," R replied.

"Of course it does," the second chess player, Q retorted.

"Fine, beat each other to death. There is a world outside of your minds, and it's pretty big. L is gone, and Watari obviously not going to come around any time soon with anyone new. I'm going to see what that world's made of while you two beat other to death," R said as he strode away.

He meant it, too. He was mostly annoyed that the fight had interfered with his quiet exit more than anything. Stepping outside of the school, a cab awaited him. He was about to open the door when it began to rain, and F and Q chased to catch up with him.

"Wait, we're coming with you!" they said.

R paid them no heed. Opening the door, the two ran up to the car.

"Take us with you! We want to see the world too!"

"I have no need for any of you where I'm going," R said, praying that this would be enough to get the two jackals off his back.

"Please," F said, "allow us to come with you. This place is finished, and we're going to destroy ourselves if we have no where to go."

_He does raise a good point_, R thought to himself. The people remaining in there were going to pull themselves to pieces incredibly quickly if they remain unsupervised. R had already broken up one fight, and more would undoubtedly come up in the future. It wasn't like Whammy house was full of delinquent kids. In fact, it was quite the opposite. These young people were extremely bright and mostly well mannered. Their intellects and focuses of learning only made for the potential for trouble increase extremely. R considered this, and decided it would be better for these two to go with him than to remain.

What they never knew afterward was that with the ten remaining occupants out Whammy House would create a battle that was, all in all, weird. One declared himself in charge. Four agreed with him, one refused to accept it, and four followed him. There was extremely little physical combat, but the end result was that Whammy House had burned to the ground, and the three sole survivors were carted off to prison, where their own stories would unfold in entirely different ways than R, F, or O.

They finally piled into the taxi, with R sitting in front. The driver was directed to bring them to a nearby city with an airport. From there, reservations were made to bring them to Tokyo, and from there to LA. It would only be fitting for them to begin in the same place L was proven not to be infallible.

"You two wait in here," R said as they came into a hotel room. "Figure out aliases that you can use convincingly. I'm going out for a while. Whatever you do, don't make it known to anyone who you are, got it?" R said.

The two agreed, and he set out. So far, he had ensured that all their expenses had been paid in cash that he had withdrawn years earlier, before L had met his demise. As soon as it had become apparent that either Mello or Near would have to step up and succeed L, R foresaw everything he needed to do. The cash would cover a taxi, creation of false documents on top of what Watari already provided his charges, plane tickets, and a hotel. The problem now was that two additional people had been added to the bill. Two solutions were obvious. Withdraw more money, or force them to pay up. Another solution was apparent though, and that was to acquire some now that they were in the USA. Any cash withdrawal would make their presence detectable, so R began to formulate how he would get more.

A short walk down the road gave him the perfect solution. Albeit unorthodox it would still fit his needs. He came across a prostitute, and a rather attractive one at that. His plan was simple, and as long as nothing caught him by surprise, harmless.

"Miss, excuse me," R started to say.

"That's Candi, to you," she said without looking at him.

"Candi, of course. What a fitting name for one as lovely as yourself."

"Are you looking for action, or do you just enjoy complimenting the destitute?" she asked sarcastically.

"Actually, I was wondering if you took cash?" he asked.

"Oh, you're pretty straight to the point," she said. "Of course, only cash. My last client was rather generous, and I can tell you're not exactly all that rich yourself, so I could give you a discount," she said as she drew a finger slowly up R's shirt.

"That's, erm… that's okay miss Candi," R said, swallowing.

Without another thought, he whipped out his wallet and withdrew two razors. Holding one in each hand he brought Candi close, catching her off guard.

"In my front pocket, the one closest to you, I want you to put all the cash you have on you right now or I'll slit your neck now and be done with you," he said in a whisper.

To anyone watching, the scene wouldn't resemble robbery, but just a simple embrace. However, R had one razor pressed against her neck, and the other against her temple. Any wrong move would result in a large amount of blood and pain, even death for her. He made the prostitute very well aware of this, too. Finally estimating that she was putting three 100 bills in his pocket five times, and finally two 100 bills in a last time, he had effectively made off with 1700. However, there was still the question of what to do with her now. R had established dominance through the threat of violence, but he had seen her, and was now a threat.

So, he solved the problem quite easily. He used a razor to break the skin under her belly, and sliced open her stomach. The acids inside her stomach were slowly emptying onto other organs as she dropped to the ground.

"I have no reason to kill you, but I need to get away from here quickly. You have a cell phone, call for help. Try to follow me and you die. Go ahead and tell the police, but I've already made arrangements to allude them," R said as he turned his back and walked away.

Making it back to the hotel in a very roundabout way around the city, R saw that F and O had indeed remained. "Have you come up with aliases yet?" he asked.

"Of course. It's not like having a new codename is difficult for us," F said. "My new name is Frederick, or Fred, whatever. Frederick Dunham. O came up with Orion Jules. I'd like to think they're pretty original."

"They're unique, I'll give you that. But how did you too come up with them?" R asked.

"You'd have to ask O, or should I say Orion," F, or rather Frederick said.

For the sake of continuity, O and F will be called by their new names from here on in.

"It's rather simple, and well amusing. We're in the United States now, and here they use a 26 letter alphabet. So I considered my codename, O, and Fred's codename F. For Fred, F is the sixth letter in the alphabet. I was a little bemused when I saw that multiplying F by two gave you twelve, or L. Now that wouldn't be conducive to anything, now would it? So, since there are three of us I divided twelve by three and came up with D, or four.

"I then applied the same idea to my name. O, which is fifteen would have to wrap around the alphabet and produce D. Dividing it by three once again, and you get ten, or J. So, O and J give you Orion Jules."

"That seemed like a big waste of time. Picking a name using a code won't get us anywhere safer," R said.

"Well, considering the millions of people out here with the initials like ours, being like what, one out of everywhere 676, I wouldn't worry about someone like Near finding us based on initials. We did use randomness to pick the actual names, but not the initials," he said.

"Fair enough," R gave in. "What about me. R is the eighteenth letters of the alphabet, so multiplying you get thirty six, which really wraps around to J. However, thirty six divided by three is twelve, which comes out to…" R cut himself off and laughed a little. "Why, isn't that interesting? I guess I'm the new L!" he said with another laugh. "R and L it is then. I suppose the name Roland Lind will suffice indeed."

"Well, that worked out strangely," Frederick said.

The three put aside their naming concept for the time being. Roland pulled out the money he had made earlier and they split it up. Soon they would need to find a new means of making money, but for the night they were at ease.

That night would be the last though. News of the attack on the prostitute spread when she was found dead. Apparently a plea for help had not gone unnoticed, but instead resulted in further assault. Roland was never identified, but it showed the group's vulnerability. From there, the three moved on, and soon found craftier ways of making money.

That was four years ago though. It took several years of them moving around, trying to stay afloat but at the same time trying their best to catch an investigation with Near's finger prints all over it, so to say. It was difficult, however to be certain that it was Near. Ever since news of L's death had gone public (well, it's more accurate to say news of Near's victory over Kira, and the slightly fabricated, but official story of how Kira had indeed defeated L and taken his post in secret only to be defeated by Near later on. The story can technically be considered correct, but many documents were forged to cover up the tracks of the individuals involved, as well as the families of the victims who were directly involved in the investigation) the world had wondered if Near was indeed a worthy successor of L. This was irrelevant however, as Near indeed took up the mantle with little discussion.

It had taken some time, but Roland and the others managed to put together a near complete list of all the codenames and aliases that L had taken for him between his own cases and the detective wars of many years earlier. Roland cross-referenced names he found in cases with his own list, and determined that Near was still recycling those names. The only problem was Roland kept discovering this after the fact, after the case had been solved.

When he had finally discovered an ongoing case with Near's involvement he acted quickly. The three of them had managed to live lightly, and had in four years made several hundred thousand dollars between small-time black market rackets, all the way up to being unlicensed investigators. The lifestyle had worked well for them. They always managed to stay disconnected to any illegal activities in the event the authorities were able to catch up with them (with conveniently never occurred). Also, in this time they had managed to produce false documentation that could bring them to any country without being placed on a terrorist watch list, or a no fly list, or have any level of external, unnecessary monitoring.

This was important to know, as the three of them made travel plans to catch up with Near. The case he was working on had occurred on the island of Sumatra. A serial killer was attack three or four people a night for at least a week. He would go into their homes and do terrible things, and obsessively clean the entire scene, making any fact-finding impossible it seemed. Orion and Frederick were given the task of picking up clues about the investigation itself while Roland made the bold move of actually approaching the crime scene.


End file.
